“History celebrates profiles in courage, not profiles in convenience.”

Martin O’Malley has demonstrated the benefits of having a liberal in the race to compete with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. He has been jabbing Clinton while campaigning in Iowa over her position that same-sex marriage should be decided by the states. O’Malley has been arguing in Iowa that “the right to marry is not a state right, it is a human right.” Clinton ultimately responded by expressing support for the Supreme Court to rule in favor of same-sex marriage nation-wide. Without mentioning her by name, O’Malley responded with a video stating, “History celebrates profiles in courage, not profiles in convenience.” Clinton has often lagged behind liberal thought on this issue.

News coverage has been using terms such as O’Malley jabbing, pinging, taking a shot, and taking a swing at Clinton on the abortion issue. There has been excitement among O’Malley supporters over the favorable publicity. While I do think that O’Malley would make a much better president than Clinton I am not terribly optimistic that this will make any difference in the nomination race–unless it is the start of a succession of O’Malley taking domination on the issues and forcing Clinton to respond. It is a point for O’Malley in terms of both both principle and obtaining favorable media coverage.

The process by which this major story was announced drew little attention elsewhere, but it was that decision to sneak this out via a spokesperson, rather than have it come from the candidate herself, that gave O’Malley an opening to grab all the ink he’s getting over it. If they had, instead, made Hillary available to one or more of these reporters, it would have been much bigger news, and that clip would be all over the news now instead of O’Malley’s.

Making that statement directly to a reporter with a background in reporting on LGBT rights would also have had the added benefit of strengthening Hillary’s relationship with that important constituency, rather than seeming like a down-low slight.

So far Clinton has only received gentle criticism for avoiding the press, but I bet this will intensify if this pattern continues. At this point I cannot recall a major party candidate who has avoided the press to this degree other than Sarah Palin.

O’Malley received additional favorable coverage with a column in The Hill looking at possible challenges to Clinton from Elizabeth Warren, Jim Webb, and Martin O’Malley:

…Team Hillary’s ascent to the Democratic nomination and White House isn’t a certainty and challengers like former Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-Md.), former Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) and (perhaps one day soon) Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) could eventually overtake the former secretary of State. While Clinton has done great things for America over the years, she’s unfortunately become a liability to the Democratic Party. The citizens of Iowa and New Hampshire and Democrats everywhere can save all of us from a Clinton campaign that says one thing when it’s politically expedient, but does another (at the expense of cherished progressive values) when poll numbers aren’t behind a certain issue.

After all, Clinton was against same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization until recently. There’s a reason that many feel she has an “authenticity problem,” and it’s the same reason Clinton differs only slightly on issues like war from her GOP counterparts. Democrats in Iowa and around the country should evaluate the Clinton campaign by its actions, not words.

…Martin O’Malley has shown superior leadership skills, compared to Clinton’s, during his tenure as Maryland’s governor. As a mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland, O’Malley’s leadership led to a No. 1 ranking for his state in schools, entrepreneurship and women-owned businesses. In contrast, Clinton and the Democratic Party must now deal with “emailgate.” According to Dan Metcalfe in his piece in Politico, “Hillary’s Email Defense is Laughable”:

So yes, Secretary Clinton’s suggestion that federal officials can unilaterally determine which of their records are “personal” and which are “official,” even in the face of a FOIA request, is laughable. …

One cannot help but wonder how Secretary Clinton’s departure process was handled.

While The Daily Iowan has compared O’Malley to President Kennedy, Clinton will no doubt have her credibility and leadership questioned by future issues related to her email scandal.

In another column at The Hill, A.B. Stoddard discussed Clinton’s need to improve support among millennial voters.

Clinton had another problem when her stories of all four grandparents being immigrants was found to be untrue by BuzzFeed News–unless you consider Scranton and Illinois to be foreign countries. It is hard to see this gaffe by itself causing Clinton any harm, and it is certainly possible she was mistaken with no intent to deceive, but this might exacerbate her problem of being viewed by voters as dishonest.

Lincoln Chafee has also spoken again about running, maybe, primarily criticizing Clinton for her support for the Iraq war.